For most candidates, feedback on how their interview went arrives days after an interview—if it arrives at all. But one CEO has decided that waiting is a waste of time. Instead, he’s started delivering his critiques to candidates on the spot (sometimes in front of a full panel) as part of the interview test. “Started to give candidates direct feedback during the interview process,” Gagan Biyani (who goes by @gaganbiyani) revealed in a recent X post. “Often in public during our panel interviews or live at the end of my 1:1 with them.” The CEO of Maven, an education platform, and cofounder of another e-learning provider, Udemy, said it’s the “most telling part” of the interview—and often a deciding factor in whether they get offered the job or not.
“If this is their nightmare, [the] candidate freezes up or even gets offended,” Biyani added it highlights straight away that they are “not a fit” for the company. “If this is exciting, they are more likely to join.”
The California-based chief revealed that he typically reserves the test for applicants that he wants to move forward with. But sometimes, Biyani admitted he’ll even throw the feedback test to candidates he liked who aren’t the perfect fit for the role.
And there’s no right or wrong answer per se—he’s even happy for candidates to scrap what they said moments earlier and pivot based on the critique: “No matter what, we expect the candidate to take the feedback in real-time and change their answers from then on out.”
Mixed reactions to the interview tactic: ‘If your company doesn’t care about psychological safety, run this test’
The interview tactic has drawn a mixed response. Some commented that they “love it” and that it’s a great way to gauge a candidate’s ability to receive criticism and whether that can thrive under transparent communications. Many others were not so sure.
“Publicly critiquing someone in a high-stakes, power-imbalance situation like this isn’t a test of ‘coachability.’ It’s a test of who is willing to suppress their nervous system response to humiliation, stress, and social threat in exchange for a job,” the most-liked response read. “Freezing, discomfort, or offense in that context isn’t fragility, it’s biology…. And filtering people out based on how well they override that isn’t selecting for resilience or a growth mindset. It’s selecting for compliance under pressure.”
Others highlighted that a candidate’s reaction in a high-stakes interview setting could be very different from day-to-day in the role, that some need time to sleep on feedback before responding, that it’s a “dehumanising” approach that would raise HR’s eyebrows, and ultimately could result in losing talent.
Career coach Kyle Elliott, EdD, echoed that “in 10 years of coaching more than 1,000 clients, no one has ever reported facing this type of situation.”
While feedback is perfectly normal, he said that the fact that it’s one-sided, based on a single interview without any prior rapport, with a job offer hinging on the response makes it problematic—and is unlikely to actually help test a candidate’s ability to do the job they’ve applied for. “This just reads like an insensitive science experiment.”
“If your company doesn’t care about psychological safety, likes to put people on the spot, and triggers trauma responses, I suppose you could run this test, Elliott added. “Otherwise, your interview process should mirror the candidate’s day-to-day work environment to get the best talent possible.”
How to handle live feedback in an interview
Live feedback is uncommon, but as Lewis Maleh, CEO of the global executive recruitment agency Bentley Lewis, warned, it is growing in popularity.
“We are seeing more companies experiment with stress testing candidates in various ways to assess how they perform under pressure,” he told Fortune. “I’ve heard of some tech CEOs and startup founders doing similar things, particularly in high-pressure roles where quick thinking and resilience are critical. But it’s definitely not mainstream practice.”
Maleh sees the logic. “If you’re hiring for a role where receiving feedback, adapting quickly, and performing under pressure are essential, testing those skills in real time makes sense,” he said. But “it absolutely can be cruel depending on how it’s executed.” Public critiques can intimidate even brilliant candidates, potentially ruling out top talent who simply don’t thrive in that scenario.
Either way, with tech companies often setting the pace for unconventional hiring and retention practices, similar tests could become more common across other sectors.
Maleh’s advice to candidates? Practice receiving feedback in real time.
“Ask friends or mentors to critique your work or ideas on the spot and practice responding thoughtfully rather than defensively,” he added. “You can also use your favourite LLM chat (ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok) and ask it to “act as a very harsh interviewer” to give you practice.”
“Focus on staying calm, asking clarifying questions, and showing you can incorporate feedback quickly.”
But don’t forget that interviews are a two-way street: “Remember that if a company’s interview process feels excessively harsh or performative, that might tell you something about their culture too.”
The post CEO says he’s started giving job candidates live feedback in the interview—and if they ‘freeze up’ or ‘get offended’ they’re not fit for the role appeared first on Fortune.
